First Encounter
by C.H.W.13
Summary: Colby's first day with the FBI. He meets his boss and the team and works on his first case. And of course, meets the (cute) Genius math consultant, with the brain, the hair and the wide eyes. But, problem is, he's his new Boss's little brother.
1. Chapter 1

Colby's first day with the FBI. He meets his boss and the team and works on his first case. And of course, meets the (cute) Genius math consultant, with the brain, the hair and the wide eyes. But, problem is, he's his new Boss's little brother.

 **First Numb3rs story. Hope it's good. Enjoy!**

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 _My first official day in the FBI_ , Colby thought as he was standing outside the Federal building in Los Angeles. He took in a breath, held it for a few seconds, and slowly let it out. _God, I hope everything will work out in this place. This should be a helluva lot safer than the Army was. But still with its dangers of course, but at least it's not constantly on guard, looking over your shoulder, wondering if even walking down a dirt path can cause you blow up, or if walking out of a building will result in a bullet going through your head, or-…_

Still looking up at the building, Colby realised where his thought were leading him, and quickly shook his head to stop thinking on that line of thought. _Ok, enough about that Granger, focus. You are now a Federal Agent and are going to be working here for the next few months? Years? Either way, this is where I am working now, so you better get in there and get started._ With that, Colby nodded, and confidently took his first step forward, bringing him towards the front door of the building. As he walked through, he quickly signed in at the desk, placed everything from his pockets on the X–ray tray as he walked through the metal detectors and made his way to the elevator.

Colby made his way up high within the building to talk to the Assistant Director in Charge; Walter Merrick, and hopefully find out where he is stationed and who he will be working with. Turns out, with is College Degree in Criminal Justice and his experience from being in the Army CID for over 6 years, his 3 years of Interrogation Techniques, and also with his experience in Tactical Training and qualified in SWAT training, Merrick believed that he would be better suited within the Violent Crimes Unit of the FBI. Colby nodded, shook the AD's hand, gave thanks, accepted his papers, and walked back out, ready to begin his first day as an FBI Agent. Well, a rookie Agent anyway. He could always improve. _If I'm here for that long anyway._

Colby looked at his papers within the elevator. _Ok, so my Boss is called Don Eppes. Cool._ Colby thought, folding his papers away and placing them into an inside pocked of his suit jacket.

As the elevator doors opened again, Colby looked out at the bullpen and watch for a few seconds as Agents went about their business solving crime, Criminals being restrained, led and being handcuffed at different areas of the room, the lawyers coming to their clients defences, a college kid walking quickly to a glass room with a lot of paper in his arms, family members being questioned, and - _Wait, what?_

Colby did a quick double take and looked back at the alleged 'college kid' and wondered what someone like _that_ was doing inside the federal building, especially in the Violent Crimes Unit at that. The 'kid' had a full head of dark curly hair that was a little like a halo around his head (and he really wanted to run his hands through it), with wide brown eyes, a slim body, wearing a white T-shirt and a blue shirt open over the top, with dark blue trousers and a satchel ( _probably has his laptop in it_ ) over his shoulder and his arms full of papers, and … maps? _What the hell? Well, at least he's cute. And has a nice ass too._ Colby thought with a slight smile on his lips.

Colby shook his head and headed for a desk that had the name DON EPPES on the desk, placed his papers on the desk, then moved over to another 'empty' desk and waited.

After a few minutes went by, a door to a glass room opened and the 'college kid' came, almost _sauntering_ out of the room with his head held high, almost as if he had just single-handedly solved a case. _Well, that's crap Granger, he's just a kid, who probably things too much of himself and had something not really worth anything. But he is still nice to look at though._ Colby casually watched the 'kid' come towards him, gave him a slight smile and continued to walk ( _sauntered!_ ) towards the elevators. _Well, at least he noticed me._ Colby thought happily.

Colby then turned around and saw a man who had short dark hair, a serious face, professional aura on him and also looked authoritative enough to be Don Eppes, so Colby stood up straighter walked casually over to his new boss's desk, where he left his papers.

The Agent took a seat at his desk, looked confusedly at the new piece of paper on his desk. Reading it over quickly, realisation came to his face, and turned to meet Colby when he came close enough for the Agent to notice him. The Agent stood back up on his feet and stretched a hand out for Colby to shake, and Colby shook it.

"Hi, my name's Colby Granger, I'm the new Agent that's been assigned to your team." Colby introduced himself to his new boss.

"Hey there, Granger. Well, everything looks in order, so this over here…" Don showed Colby to his new desk, "… is your desk. There are another 2 Agents working with me, you'll meet them in a bit. They are Megan Reeves and David Sinclair. David will be your partner, so if he tells you to do something, then you listen to him. Well, unless I say otherwise." Don said with a slight smirk on his lips, and Colby gave a slight chuckle to show that he knew that his new boss is giving him his first lesson. "OK, any questions Granger?" Don asked his newest Agent.

Colby puckered his lips up a little in thought, and shook his head, no. "Nope, I'm all good for now."

"Alright then. Stay here for now, we've almost wrapped up this case, so just settle in for now, and I'll catch you up in a bit and introduce you to the rest of the team when they get back." Don said, and then walked over to the elevators, presumably to either go out, or more likely, to talk to the AD about their near finished case.

Colby watched him leave, turned to his desk, sat down, and smiled. He took out a fishing lure from his pocket, and placed it on "his" lamp, gave it a slight stroke, and smiled in memory for a bit, then turned to his computer, and got to work.

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Not much happened on his first day in the office, but he did get a change to meet both of the other Agents that he would be working with, David Sinclair and Megan Reeves. _Well, maybe tomorrow will be a slightly busier day, and hopefully one I can do something on._ Colby thought, as he packed up his things – phone, gun, wallet, keys – and made his way to the elevators.

As he reached the elevators, and the door opened, Colby started walking forward, but then a mass of dark curly hair and wide eyes, quite literally, walked right into him, knocking them both slightly off balance. Colby on reflex, grabbed the other person's arm to keep them both steady.

"Sorry." Both Colby and the other person said at the same time, looking at each other, and for Colby, it almost felt like the world had stopped spinning for a few seconds. _Wow._ Colby was looking into dark wide eyes, boyish face, and a mass of wild curly hair that he _really_ wanted to run his hands through and smell and pull and-

Colby quickly stopped his thoughts running wildly and concentrated back on the… Wait, it's the same 'kid' as earlier. _Thought I recognised that hair_.

"Uh, are you ok?" Colby asked him, worried because he seemed to not be talking either. The 'kid' gave a quick shake of his own head and nodded quickly after, his cheeks a little red.

"Yeah, yeah I'm ok, thanks. Just startled a little. But thanks anyway." He said, rotating his shoulders a little to move his bag strap back up again. Colby suddenly realised that he still held the 'kids' arm, and quickly let go.

"Um… Oh I'm Colby Granger by the way. Just started working here. Do, uh… do you work here to?" Colby asked uncertainly, wondering if he had possibly ( _hopefully not_ ) insulted the 'kid'.

"Oh, no, I don't really work here, just help out whenever I can with cases. I'm a consultant. A Mathematician actually. A Math Consultant." Now Colby knew he was rambling a little, maybe he was nervous, or still a little shaken, or maybe he was just a little shy around new people. _He's cute though, especially when he's blushing. Wait, he's blushing?_ Colby looked a little harder, and yes, he was most definitely blushing. _Huh, wonder what's making him blush? Probably is just shy around new people_.

"Oh, my name's Charlie Eppes by the way." He introduced himself, sticking his hand out to shake Colby's hand. _Is that chalk on his hands?_ Colby thought absentmindedly. _Wait, Eppes?_

"Eppes? Any relation to Don Eppes by any change, or just a weird coincidence?" Colby asked curiously, because if the 'kid' – Charlie – was Don's brother… _Please don't be Don's brother, your too cute, and have a really nice ass, and-…_

"Yeah he's my older brother. I help him out on cases. So you're his new Agent?" Charlie asked curiously.

 _Oh, Damn. Can't ask him out now. That's just career suicide asking your boss's younger brother out on a date. Damn._ "Yeah, I'm the new Agent, first day." Colby replied, with a slight sad look on his face, but really trying to not let it show. "So, how exactly does math help solve cases then?" Colby asked.

Charlie's eyes, and his face, seemed to light up suddenly, almost as if someone told him that Christmas came early this year.

"Well, everything is numbers. Just by using the different points and numbers in each unique case, an algorithm can be made, depending on what needs to be found, and my numbers can help find people. Or find commonalities, or, similarities, or locations, or paths with the higher probability of being taken, or –"

 _Uh oh_.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Second Chapter up. Enjoy!**

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The rest of Colby's week was again a little quiet, but far more exciting than his first day. _Well, unless you can count watching the world's cutest and most sexiest ass walking by almost every day, if not a few times in the same day, and also the head full of dark, perfect, curly hair, and did I mention the world's greatest ass as well?_ Colby thought, thinking again about Charlie, and how he could do nothing about asking him out.

 _You don't even know if he's even interested in guys Granger. You see the way the woman – Amita? – looks and follows him around. Give it up. They have, probably, already been on dates. Give. It. Up._ But no matter how many times he tried, Colby couldn't get the image of Professor Charles Eppes (and his ass) out of his mind.

Well, his first week on the job was fun, then. Don was a hard boss, but fair at the same time, wanting everyone to do everything right, but doing themselves as well, giving us guidance, but letting us get there on our own. Megan was really good at reading and analysing people. Sometimes, with just one look, she could make a suspect spill everything, even did on one guy. _That was amazing, and a little scary at the same time_. David was definitely 'by the book' kind of guy, which was ok with Colby, but it did leave David with a slight 'either it's black or it's white' view of the world, which Colby knew it wasn't, especially after 6 years in the Army.

And no matter how hard Colby tried, he still believed that most people had some sense of honour within them, weather they were in the Army – or any of the Force – that most people would do what was right. Even though that thought really blew up in his face on the first, big, case he worked on with the team.

And then there was Charlie. Colby wasn't sure at first, and very sceptical, on how numbers could really help solve crime, but after 2 successful (if they also happened to be relatively minor and easy) cases, where Charlie's math seemed to get suspects, locations and information out of thin air, Colby very quickly became a big believer in Charlie's 'God of Math' and his ability to get almost everything. Unfortunately, he couldn't predict the lotto numbers. _Shame_.

Starting on the second week on the job, but thankfully almost finishing his report on it, was the latest case to come across their desks, the murder of a Judge's wife, Alison Trelane, and the husband is a Federal District Judge named Franklin Trelane, who has been working on the bench for 18 years and an additional 12 years before that as a Federal Prosecutor.

There was a lot of suspects, and Megan had, at the beginning, said she was going to do threat assessments on all of the suspects, like doing a behavioural analyses based on their documentation, court transcripts, death threats, pre-sentencing psych evals, or something along those lines, which was basically profiling.

Most people first looked at the current trial that was going on and looking at them as the first suspects. A Duc (Danny) Lu Phan, who happened to be facing the death penalty, and his gang, who was being run by a Raymond Hmong, his number-two man, then became our number 1 suspect, as by the sounds of it, he wanted to be the number-one guy. And, yeah, Colby kinda screwed up on this angle, while 'talking' to Raymond at his 'lair'.

And looking around that building with at least 15-20 gang members, we was a little worried, but he hoped David had his back, even if he didn't back him up on his play. And yeah, he and David didn't agree on some things that went down, and… what the hell was Wolf-Tickets again?

Although David did give him a good lesson though, "A badge isn't a magic wand." Ok so they technically didn't have a cause to arrest them, and yeah, backing them into a corner, of course they were going to fight. But come on, Raymond Hmong had motive to kill the Judge's wife and this giving Danny the death penalty, so he then became the number-one guy.

Ok maybe bitching to Don about what happened wasn't necessarily the greatest way to get around it, but he needed to say something. And no doubt David had bitched to Don about him to.

But he went back to looking at anything that could help them in the case, and low and behold, what does he find, but 5 calls to dispatch with the Judge's address for Domestic Disturbances where the LAPD responded, and even had to escort the Judge off the premises, twice. And for a little bit there, we believed that it could have been the Judge to have ordered the hit, but that soon became discredited and we went back to looking at others.

Then there was a threat made on the Judge's life, so what do we do, but raid the warehouse where the gang was based of course. Arresting all of the members and going through their stuff, and finding out that Raymond wasn't there. And when we were doing the raiding, Raymond was busy shooting at the Judge and at Danny, right outside the court room. And of course, Don got him. Only to later find out it wasn't the Judge he was after, but his 'boss' Danny. 'Self-defence' he had called it. _What a load of bull._

And then Charlie came to the rescue by taking hundreds of files of suspects, and coming out with 2 suspects, an Orson Hardee and Lance Dolan. Hardee was a cop-killer, killing a Detective by the name of Josh Kalen back in 1994, and Dolan who was wanted on a bench warrant for assault, and was only made apparent because of a 'Crimestopper Tip'.

Well, Colby heard later that Charlie had asked Don " _What if you had no motive, but had a partial Fingerprint?_ " and Don had replied " _I'd follow the evidence._ " And Charlie, being Charlie, had replied by saying, " _So, what's the difference between my math and a partial fingerprint?_ " as if it was the most obvious, and one of the silliest questions in the world.

Anyway, Colby and David then went to talk to the individual who gave Lance Dolan's name on the tip line, a Hector Machado, who they found in a diner, taking money from the table that a costumer had left as a tip. Of course they sat there talking for a while, saying how they know quite a bit about him, like how he was constantly getting thrown in jail and hearing things. He went on to say how he meet Dolan in a bar and got him drunk, ( _out of the goodness you his heart, not_ ). Colby noticed that David was trying not to laugh at his joke.

Then Hector went on to say that Dolan had said 'no arrests was going to be made on the Judge's wife's murder as long as he got some money and got out of town.'

After talking to Hector, Colby then went down to LAPD's Warrant Squad and found out that Dolan had a girlfriend, a Stacy Manning, a small time criminal herself to.

And then Charlie, _Oh God, he still has a cute ass and a very cute smile_ , went on to talk about Pi.

Charlie had this look on his face, a look that is just frustration when you know something, but it's very difficult to explain how you know it and how to explain it, so Charlie did.

"Sometimes math finds something that we can't explain. It's – it's Pi."

"Pi?" Colby asked, like he couldn't quite see how Pi – or know which pie he was talking about for a second – would help them on this, and also a little bewildered.

"The ratio of circumference of the diameter of a circle." Charlie went on to explain.

"I know what Pi is." And Colby did know about this Pi, but obviously not as much as Charlie was going to explain to them.

"Ok, but did you know that if you randomly drop needles onto a sheet of lined paper, the probability that a needle will cross a line relates directly to Pi? It's called Buffon's Needle. And Pi appears in quantum mechanics, relativity theory and number theory. But do you know why Pi would show up in all these seemingly unrelated places?" Charlie asked.

"Actually, I don't have a clue." Megan replied.

"Neither do I. No one does yet. But although we can't fully explain Pi, it keeps working, keeps turning up." Charlie concluded, raising both of his hands to point at the whiteboard we was standing at.

"So you're saying that Pi is like something that connects Dolan to Trelane, but we just can't figure it out, yet?" Don asked, just to make sure. And Colby had to agree, that did kinda make sense. Kinda. Something that connected them, but we just couldn't see it yet. Ok, so all we need to do is find the connection. Easy.

And then David showed up, with a file in his hand. "Lance Dolan's bench warrant. Guess who he's wanted for stabbing last year." He then passed the file over to Don. Colby looked over the desk-wall-spacer-thing to read over Don's shoulder. And who do they see, but none other than Hector Machado.

"Well, that could explain why Hector's so willing to snitch on Dolan." Colby said, a little obviously but it still needed to be said.

"Or set him up." Was Megan's final conclusion on that matter, with what looked like a little smile on her face.

Don then stood up from his chair, walked over to Charlie's whiteboard, went to the empty space, stuck Hector's face on the board, and wrote the universal math sign for Pi next to his face. "Pi." Colby gave a slight smile and laugh at that.

And then we had Hector brought into an interrogation room and made him aware that we knew about the stabbing, and found out why he now readily wanted to snitch on him, and not the previous year. Apparently it's all to do with money. _Well, aren't most things these days?_

And of course we had to get Hector to work with us to get Dolan out of hiding by calling Dolan's girlfriend. And Colby couldn't help but role his eyes at Hector's wording in the tech room while on the phone to Dolan's girlfriend. Well, it did the trick, it led us straight to Dolan. And the gun he used to kill Alison Trelane.

And of course it lead us to knowing that it was a hit on Alison Trelane, and Dolan thinking it was a guy who wanted his wife dead. That it was a $5000 before and $5000 after the hit. How wrong was he on that account. Well, at least he gave us another reason to bring back Hector on something we didn't know.

Bringing Hector back to Interrogation, Colby using the 'Selling Wolf-Tickets' line from David, and seeing him smirk a little out of the corner of his eye, finding out that he set up the introduction between Alison and Josh Kalen.

 _Wait, isn't that the Cop that got killed by our other suspect, Hardee?_ Yep, it was. And it turns out, that it was Josh Kalen's wife that had put out the hit on Alison, so that 'he would know what it's like to lose someone', and to 'think twice about the next killer he goes easy on'.

Colby shook his head and finished his report. After a few days, they had finally found justice for Alison Trelane's murderer and hopefully, give Judge Franklin a little bit of comfort, even though Colby knew it wouldn't be much.

Finishing his report, Colby sat it down on Don's desk and went back to his desk to get everything ready to go home. He then made his way to the break room for a quick cup of coffee. He looked up and happened to see Charlie and an elderly gentleman walk towards Don's desk, as Don is getting ready to leave as well. _He could possibly be their father. I mean, Charlie has his nose, and Don has his height and some facial features._

Then a pretty looking woman came up and stopped in front of the 3 men, and as she walked away, all 3 men seemed to avert their eyes further down south, even their father. And so did Charlie. _Well, that answers that question of your Granger. He's in to women, not guys._

Colby let out a slightly disappointed sight and looked down at his half full cup of coffee, deciding against drinking it, threw the drink down the sink and the cup into the trash. As he walked back out into the bullpen, Charlie happened to turn back and looked at him, blushed, and quickly averted his eyes.

 _Ok that's not helping me at all._ Colby just shook his head, collected his jacket from his desk, and went out to his car, and drove home.

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	3. Chapter 3

**Third Chapter up. Enjoy!**

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The first month working for the FBI was as one would expect, busy and tiring, and Colby definitely was.

There was a case of a Jewellery owner, who's family was kidnapped and held for ransom, a kindergarten teacher killed trying to help out, and then finding out in the end, that the jewellery owner was so much in debts, had his own family kidnapped to pay the money back. _Who would purposely place their family in harm's way anyway? That's not right. Glad the wife slapped and left him. The daughter deserves better than a father who places her in danger, and also the wife – ex-wife now – deserves better than a husband that does that_.

Then there was a big case with a Celebrity being stalked, and during that case he did a little bit of golfing to hopefully get some information from one of their suspects, and also his ( _memorable_ ) first time coming over to Charlie's house, full of blackboards and papers everywhere.

The garage was so full of papers, chalkboards and, well, mess, that at first Colby didn't know where to go or where to look. He shook Charlie's hand and also properly met Alan Eppes for the first time, and shook his hand as well. He was there to check on the handwriting analysis that Charlie had going on the stalker notes. Like how some letters are written differently depending on where it is in a word, and what letter came before it in that word. It was really rather fascinating to learn about, even if it was tiring at times listening to Charlie.

And then there was the 'Love Letter' that Charlie had from CalSci, from his own admirer, and had already, apparently, compared it to Amita's handwriting, only it wasn't her. And of course it was just funny to watch Charlie all flustered and almost blush in front of his father, that Colby couldn't help but be amused and laugh a little at it.

Even though Charlie had not been happy with the FISH System, it did manage to kick out a name for us, only to find out he wasn't the stalker for the past 3 months as he was in jail. And then Charlie turns around and says, "The same person did not write all of these letters." _Great._

Apparently there was a copycat stalker on the loose. And the sudden change of writing coincides with the escalation to the threats to the Celebrity; Skylar Wyatt, according to both Charlie and Megan. Orville turned out to be the stalker, but not the killer. That was Skylar Wyatt herself that killed the photographer. That was a little bit of a shock for everyone.

Then there was a murder of a 'Whistle Blower' by the name of Lucinda Shay, who worked as a chief financial officer at Syntel Corporation, the energy company with the big stock fraud case and bankruptcy. And her testimony was supposed to sink the other executives. We also found out that her son was in the house when she was killed, and in the end, identified the car he saw the killer use. The kid, Daniel, stayed in Charlie's house, mostly with Alan of course.

This just so happened to be the time where Charlie had heard him call him the "Whiz Kid", but, thankfully Charlie had taken it as a complement. _No good insulting or making fun of the person you have a crush on Granger._

Then they also found out that Charlie knew Lucinda, and had helped her out when the scandal first broke at the SEC and Charlie was asked to examine the accounting related to Syntel's offshore partnerships, and Lucinda was very helpful to Charlie, even if she didn't at first know what Syntel was really doing, but she figured it out, and this, blew the whistle. Then he and David had to go through thousands of death threats and mail that was sent to her, to try and find out which ones sounded like they were mad enough to kill Lucinda. There were a lot of people.

And this case was the first time that Colby ever visited CalSci, and Charlie's office. Looking around, Charlie was at his chalkboard, showing his cute ass towards Colby, his desk full of clutter, even a sand-hourglass, a lot of things that looked like toys for kids, even though they looked really hard and to solve, and another desk with even more clutter on it, and a jar full of gumballs, and another blackboard – _Wait, gumballs?_

Colby looked at the multicolour jar of gumballs, smiled, looked back at Charlie working on his chalkboard, turn and look at a note pad on his desk, then turned back to work on his board, all without seeing Colby standing there, inside in office. Colby didn't mind, he got to see Charlie's cute ass again. Colby gave a fond sigh with a smile, knocked on the door and walked in, announcing his presence, so as not to startle him.

"Charlie," was Colby's greeting. "Don sent me down to check and see what you've got from the supercomputer." Charlie had already turned to watch him walk closer to his second desk, the one with the gumballs.

"He must not have gotten my message." Charlie responded, still watching Colby.

"I guess not. Oh, can I take one of these?" Standing right next to the jar of gumballs, already halfway to reaching a gumball before getting permission from Charlie. Well, Charlie opened his arms as if to indicate, 'Yeah sure, go ahead', so Colby did. "Which message?" Colby then asked Charlie, taking a gumball out of the jar.

"There was a glitch in the data run. Uh, can you just tell me which one you're taking?" Charlie asked, indicating the gumball in Colby's hand, as he moved towards his desk to, presumably, write down the colour.

Colby looked a little confused for a second, looked down at his gumball and showed it up for Charlie to see, holding it between his first two fingers. "This red one." Colby had replied.

"That's very interesting." Charlie answered directly to Colby, writing it down. _What was interesting about a red gumball being chosen? Oh God, he has an experiment on what the most popular colour of gumball is, doesn't he? Well, anything to help science, even if it is weird, and also a little amusing to be a part of_.

"Ok." Colby replied, shrugging his shoulders. _As long as I get to eat the gumball, it's all good_. "So how little is this glitch?" Colby asked, getting Charlie back on track with the case, and the reason for why Colby was there. _Even if I really wanted to see him, and his cute ass, and of course, finally see his office. What of it?_ "Because Megan profiled seven ex-employees, all who have the potential to be the killer. And anything you have might help us take this guy down before he has a chance to shoot another Syntel exec." Colby explained, moving towards Charlie and passing him the file he was holding.

Charlie looked quickly at the file and gave his findings, "I think I have one of these names on my list, actually." Charlie said, then turned to his blackboard, and proceeded to flip it over to the other side, where quite a few names were on the board. "Yeah, Morton Standbury." Charlie says, pointing to his name. "But the probability of Morton's guilt is less than 10 percent. Uh, I mean, that's hardly conclusive." Charlie went on to explain, but at this point Colby had already taken out his phone and was about to call David.

"Awesome. Thanks." Colby replied, giving Charlie a 'thumbs up' and tuned to walk away, the phone to his ear. "David, hey, it's me. Listen, Megan was right on her hunch. The Standbury guy's a match." Colby told David, then he turned in the door way, waved his hand towards Charlie, still holding the red gumball, between his fingers, and walked out.

Once the found where Standbury was, he was holding a bag full of newspaper clips, and the wall of the room he was renting was full of the same thing. Colby had to chase after him, telling the others that he saw Standbury with a gun. Colby even had to show him his badge, just for him to calm down enough to talk to us.

Turns out that Lucinda Shay was killed to stop a $312 million cheat in what they were doing in making money from Trading Energy Futures. Something about 'Nobody's perfect' and that a trading group inside the company that was perfect and was never wrong, ever, about what they were betting on. And according to Charlie, Lucinda Shay could have very well have found it, or very nearly had found it, which is why she was killed. This also meant that we were looking at the wrong group of suspects who had the motive to kill Lucinda Shay.

Then we find out that the traders didn't exist. Charlie pointed out that the suspect must come from Syntel's trading business, and then Don had a call from his dad, saying that the kid, Daniel, was missing.

Don later found him in his own house, as he had remembered the car that the killer drove away in. And by the end it turned out that the CEO of the company, Galway, that is was his son, Malcolm, that had killed Lucinda, as he was the one behind the fraud and moving the $312 million as a scam, this leading to the fall of Syntel. Colby was the one to handcuff and lead him away. By the end, the kid, Daniel, went to live with his grandmother, and Don, oddly enough, was a slightly better boss after the case was done. Maybe kids were a good influence on him.

Then our next big, long and a slightly exiting case was of an Assassination. They stared the case with finding a man named Henry Korfelt, who the FBI believed to be making fake passports, but finding out he actually made fake passports, drivers licences, car registrations, gun permits and quite a few more identity fraud, in his mother's 'Assisting Living' home. He ended up trying to burn his work, and making a run for it when Don came knocking on his mother's front door.

Colby and David went running after him towards his car, and Colby, being the man he is, stood in front of the car, speeding towards him, and got off 3 shots into the front windscreen of the car, making Korfelt stop a few inches away from Colby's legs. Don and David then got him out of the car, and away in handcuffs.

Colby continued to stand still for a few more seconds, still with his gun out, pointed at Korfelt. Colby didn't want to admit that he was a little shaken, the car had come really close to running him over. _But that's what soldiers do, stare in the face of danger, and not flinch_.

And then we find a note book. The note book was one of the items that Korfelt had tried to burn, and it was full of letters, only written in groups of 3 of 4. It was code for something, and who do we know who's good at breaking code? _Charlie_.

Once Don had taken it to Charlie, we found out that a 'Transposition Cipher' was being used, and that it, apparently, had nothing to do with passports. Apparently Charlie had seen these same groupings of letters before for one of his work's with the NSA. What we had found, was a plan for an Assassination.

Charlie explained it as 'Pattern Recognition', and that everyone does it, all the time, and Charlie's example was Scrabble – _which Colby found out later after asking about playing the game, that Charlie couldn't spell well at all, which kinda made sense to Colby. If Charlie's brain was hardwired to learning and understanding numbers, of course he was going to have difficulties with words and letters_ – where our minds know language, and it automatically searches for groupings of letters that make sense to us, that then makes a word. And Charlie then saying that his mind knows codes and ciphers, and that he couldn't help but recognise them as patterns.

Charlie then went on to explain that the groupings in the book were abbreviations, and that they were not encrypted. Colby then asked what the abbreviations were for, and Charlie straight away said – "Types of killings." He went up to the screen with the groupings on and proceeded to point out what some of the groupings meant.

OPN = Open,

SCRT = Secret,

LST = Lost,

SFE = Safe,

The team then talked about Korfelt's involvement suggests that the assassin isn't local, which is why he needed a passport, this meaning that the killer needed to get into the country, and then Colby said, unless he's already here, which made everyone panic a little, thinking then now have an assassin in their country, right in their back yards. And there was a moment when Colby looked around, where Charlie looked at him, with a look that almost seemed to say, ' _Why didn't I think of that?'_ and also ' _Oh God, we have an assassin here?!_ '

When it came time to question Korfelt, Colby was given the honour. Colby started with circuling around the table and Korfelt, who was sitting in the chair. _Maybe I can get him to talk if there were very serious charges against him. Even though fraud is still a serious charge_.

"You assaulted a federal officer with a deadly weapon." Colby started, hoping that that _might_ just scare him enough to talk. _Good-cop, Bad-cop routine. Works most of the time. So I'm bad-cop, Don's gonna be the good-cop. I can play this bit_.

"It was a Volkswagen." Was Korfelt's reply, with a slight twitch to his mouth, almost a smile, almost as if he believed that the charge wouldn't really count.

"You think it's funny?" Colby accused, then talked a bit more, hoping to scare him more into talking.

Just as Don came walking into the Interrogation room, Korfelt said, "I don't know anything about a murder." And Don's reply, after he sat down, came so smoothly, "It's not gonna fly." And was that a slight hint of fear in Korfelt's face? He looked a little rattled.

Don then went on to say, "We cracked your code." Pointing to the pictures of the book on the table in between them. "We know you provided documents and vehicles and weapons to an assassin."

Colby then immediately picked it up, "We don't need to talk to him anymore. We should talk to his mother." Colby said, getting an immediate reaction from Korfelt. "It's her apartment, right?"

"You can't do that. My mother has a heart condition." Korfelt said, shaking his head, but not taking his eyes off of Colby.

"Then start telling us what we wanna know or think about a defibrillator for 'Mommy'." Colby replied back, knowing it was a little hard, maybe, even for playing 'Bad-cop', but it got the result they wanted. Korfelt now looked scared, and worried.

"He'll kill me. Don't you understand?" He tried to reason, and yeah, he did sound quite scared this time. He couldn't even look at Colby or Don anymore. Colby and Don shared a quick look between them.

"Look, Henry." Don said, getting Korfelt's attention, and by using his name, gave a more 'friendlier' feel to the 'Good-cop' play, "I'm all you got." Don said this in a voice that was soft and gently, and it did the trick.

"I don't know names." Korfelt said, now looking more nervous than scared, but he was stilled worried, that was for sure. "Only a code reference. Condor." He supplied, which is what the assassin is called.

"And who's the target?" Don asked, now asking normally, like an FBI Agent.

"He's a Colombian. A kid, I think. His father was an activist who got killed down there." Was what Korfelt gave them, which was a start. Don nodded and gave an agreeable sound, looking at Colby, who also gave a nod. _This is a start_.

From everything that Korfelt gave them, as little as it was, was enough to find a name to the target, a Gabriel Ruiz. Turns out the reason for why anyone would want to kill him, was to make sure that Gabriel Ruiz didn't go into politics like his father to give hope to others. This, his death would have to look like an accident, which of course, helped Charlie to find out how the assassin intended to kill Ruiz.

But when Korfelt was being moved by the US Marshalls, just as he walked through the gate towards the car, he was shot and killed by a sniper shot, damaging one of our advantages in stopping the assassination from happening.

Back in the bullpen, Colby and David were looking through Korfelt's history, trying to find anything that could possibly help them, only to find out that he had been 'laying-low' for 3 weeks, with nothing happening on his credit cards, or bank statements.

Then David started talking, "Rumour has it you got an eyeful in Afghanistan."

"It wasn't so bad, you know. College degree kept me off the front and all." _But even with that, it didn't stop everything from the war getting to me_ , Colby thought, but didn't want to explain that to David.

"That's why you joined the bureau? Wanted to get some action?" David sais jokingly. _If only you know how bad war can be buddy, you'd know working for the bureau was almost like child's play some days. Much less messy and bloody_.

"What else was I gonna do with 3 years of interrogation techniques?" Colby said instead. _Make it sound like I haven't ever used them. I really don't want to talk or remember about the things I've seen, heard or done, even if they weren't all that bad, they were still bad enough_. Colby realised early on starting here, that it was probably best not to tell anyone a lot of things about himself, it was just better that way.

"Wait a minute. Korfelt's mom. We ran her credit cards, right?" David asked, and just with that question, the previous line of questioning was finished ( _thankfully_ ) and a new lead was found in the case. _Bingo_ , as what David said.

Charlie ended up going to Ruiz's place to assess the possible ways Ruiz may be assassinated – _which Colby most_ definitely _are not happy with_ – but it did help, for a little while. And then David found Ruiz almost drowned in the river by his house.

Then we were told by Charlie, that the person, who David saw with Ruiz trying to 'help' David bring him to shore, was in fact the assassin, by giving a simple assassination 'rule', "Basic protocol of a secret assassination, be the first respondent" and for a good few seconds, everyone was shocked and speechless, looking at one another in the room. David was just stood face-to-face, talking with the Condor, the assassin.

Later, when Colby and David went to see a potential suspect connected to the Condor, it lead them to a computer shop in West L.A, they were meat in the front by a shade looking man, who eagerly wanted to run, so Colby had to jump over the front counter, and manhandle him a little to make sure he didn't try and run from them, and David already had his gun out pointed at him.

Colby then made his way to the back room, and was immediately faced with a gun in their suspect's hands, and Colby quickly drew out his own weapon to point at the suspect. Colby and the suspect were at a slight stand-off, and then David came through the door, with his gun pointed straight at the suspect, standing right behind Colby.

But then David came up right behind Colby, on his left side, and the gun was positioned right next to Colby's face. Colby couldn't help but look at the gun from the corner of his eye, remembering a time when another gun was very close to his head, and not held by a friend either. _Focus Granger, eyes back on the suspect!_

The suspect finally put the gun down, and Colby went to cuff him, turning to David a little annoyed, and possibly due to adrenaline pumping through his veins as well, let it out a little. "If you fired, you'd have blinded me." Colby accused a little harder than he had meant.

David gave a little shrug of his shoulders as an apology of sort, "Should've closed your eyes." Was his smart retort, and playing it off a little like a joke. And then they hit the 'jackpot'. Guns, lots of guns.

They then managed to set a trap to hopefully capture Condor, Colby and David taking Ruiz to a safe house, and Condor walked right into the trap, but it ended in a gunfight, and was killed by Don. The Condor turned out to basically be a ghost, and at last, that difficult and tiring case was over, and Ruiz ended up going back to Columbia. Colby could really do without assassinations for another good long while. He was just glad that it was over and finished.

Colby then managed to overhear later that Charlie had tried to go out on another date with Amita, to a concert – White Stripes – but it didn't work out, and Colby was secretly happy that it didn't, and gave a little smile to himself. _Charlie deserves better than her anyway_. But then realising how selfish and a little possessive that sounded, Colby gave a firm shake of his head to get some sense into himself for thinking that. _As long as he is happy Granger, just be happy for him, even if it is with Amita, and not you_.

With a big sigh, Colby finished his report, picked up his stuff, walked out of the FBI building and towards home, thinking again about Charlie with a (reluctantly admitting) beautiful Indian woman by his side, and not Colby himself.

 _There'll be someone Granger, just wait_. But even though Colby was thinking these words, he knew that there wasn't going to be anyone else like Charlie for him. _Move on Granger. Move on_.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry about the wait. Life. Just life getting in the way. Anyway …**

 **Fourth Chapter up! Enjoy!**

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The second month working for the FBI was just as exiting, scary and tiring as the first month was, but from different kind of cases and scenarios than what Colby had done. The first was definitely a case that brought back bad memories for Colby from his time in the Army.

There was a case involving Homeland Security performing drills on terrorist attacks (or as they called it, Anti-Terror Drills) across many different venues and high profile places, testing their new Biochem sensors and their responses to the attacks. The agent in charge of the drills was James Grace, and was there on the first drill, where it turned into an actual attack, using the gas Phosgene. Thankfully, everyone who was exposed was ok in the end.

Apparently Homeland had another 10 drills to do in L.A in the next week, and was determined to continue with the drills, otherwise it was showing that they were to 'scared' to continue with keeping places, and people, safe.

Then we met the man in charge of overseeing the drills, Peter Houseman, also with Homeland Security. And even though Don had warned them to place their other exercises on hold, Houseman refused by saying "Sorry. That's not an option." Almost as if he didn't care that people may get hurt if the same people tried another attack again.

Ok, Colby could understand why he didn't want to give up, it was because these exercises and drills were there to help people in Law Enforcement to know what to do if, or possibly when, an attack happens within the L.A area, either in the airports, train stations, harbours, water stations, food supplies, chemical plants or within hospitals. They were there for everyone's safety, but it may not be the best thing to do if a terrorist organisation was out to hurt people within these drills.

Colby and David happened to pull the short straw with Megan and were in charge of going 'Dumpster Diving' or thankfully in this case, just dumping the trash on the floor, hoping to find something, and luckily they did. In the trash can outside the station, there was a dark baseball cap, a dark jacket (the same as what some of the other undercover MTA agents were wearing), a dark rucksack and Gas Mask inside the bag, along with a "Cafe-Latte-to-Go can", which, with Megan taking it from Colby, proceeded to comment on how she 'loves these things', but it had been tampered with, showing both Colby and David, then handing it back to Colby.

"Well, now what?" Colby asked, handing the can back over to Megan, to which Megan replied, "Now, we buy Charlie a coffee" and placing the can into an evidence bag.

A little later when Charlie came into the War Room, he proceeded to tell us how he knew about these coffees, commenting about that half of his students drank them per lecture, (which Colby had to give a smile to that) and then showing everyone in the room how a button on the bottom of the can, starts its own 'Internal Heating System' to keep the drink warm by the water mixing with the quicklime inside. And according to Charlie, 'it is highly exothermic'. _His words, not mine. It's still hot though. (See what I did there?)_.

And Megan, of course, couldn't help but comment on how good a latte it makes. Charlie ended up giving the can over to Megan to look at.

Then on the monitor behind Charlie, he proceeded to show a diagram of the subway car and the gas's 'journey', or it pattern, around the car, showing where the gas was released, using something called a 'Gaussian Plume Dispersion Model'.

During Charlie's diagram, Megan turned around in her chair and gave the latte drink over to Colby, who took it and gave it a quick once over, looking at the bottom, seeing how it works.

Charlie continued to talk about 'Gas Dispersion' and how a gas cloud is made up of many plumes, he was able to find the original release point, which so happened, to be precisely in the centre of the car, which allows for the greatest dispersion of the gas.

Charlie then reminded us that the gas that was used was diluted, and if it was potent, and been released in the same place, people would have died.

Colby then said "Which means this person could have taken lives, but chose not to." Which he saw Charlie nod faintly at his words, as if to confirm what everyone else knew.

"Well, we know he deliberately chose to target an anti-terrorism drill." David commented.

"So we're talking about a high-risk taker with a thrill-seeking disposition." Megan summarised, well, profiled.

"Right, it's like a game to them." Don clarified, probably writing this all down at the same time.

"And most thrill-seekers are adrenaline junkies. So, I'd say our guy is gonna strike again, only this time, he'll need to up the ante." Megan continued.

"We're gonna get ourselves some real casualties." Don finished, making everyone feel slightly more edgy. But to Colby, it almost felt to familiar, almost being back in Afghanistan, waiting for the next terrorist strike to happen, knowing it was coming, but no knowing where or how many it was taking with it.

Don then quickly went to talk again to Houseman about putting the exercises on hold, but again got put down. Don was really trying.

Later on in the day, Colby happened to overheard Don telling Megan in the break room that apparently Charlie and Larry had a 'Final's Competition' of sorts for a 'Minibot Chain Yank and Crank', or something about a small robot pulling a car, which sounded really cool, was happening next Friday. And then Don said the Minibot broke down before it could get over the finish line. Colby gave a quite chuckle to himself on that one. _Shame, would have liked to go and see that. I've always loved technology_.

Colby quickly made his escape back to the War Room, before they found out he was eavesdropping on their conversation. He sat down at the table with files in front of him. David then came in and sat down on the desk, opposite Colby, also going through more files. Then we had footage of the guy caught on tape of him dumping his gear in the trash bin where we had picked up his stuff earlier.

The guy's name was Roger Holstein, 31, ex-Army Special Forces. _Tough, badass basters, but they sure as hell got good results, and are very efficient in their tactics_.

"Body art was the tip-off. That tattoo right there?" Colby explained, showing on the screen the tattoo that Holstein had on his lower part of his left shoulder, a skull with swards going through it in a 'X' shape, with a 3-layer ribbon moving down, with the words "MIND", "OVER, "MATTER" within each section of the ribbon. "That means, he's a CT Team Operative."

"CT Team?" Megan asked, looking confused.

"Counter Terror." Colby supplied. "They're soldiers trained to role-play out enemies, then mimic their tactics."

"Including terrorist's simulations." David continued.

"They test the security at military bases and weapons stations by staging mock attacks." Colby clarified, explaining a little more on what they can do.

"And the subway strike?" Don asked.

"Oh, it's right out of their playbook. This guy Holstein? He's been doing the exact same kind of work as a civilian contractor since he was discharged from the Army." Colby replied.

"Their last job was two months ago. His team staged a mock attack on Mirabo Labs, a private chemical facility." David explained.

"What? You think that's where he go the Phosgene?" Don asked.

"Yeah" David replied, with Colby nodding behind him in confirmation.

Megan then asked that if they worked in teams, to which Colby replied "Always". Megan then asked to replay the footage and they then find out that Holstein was working with someone else, by taking orders from an earpiece in his left ear, which meant that there was someone else. And the other guy could possibly be another ex-Army, ex-CT team guy by the name of Glen Nash, another former Special Forces, who also had a Medal of Valour. It also showed that he had training in Psy-Ops, Cyber-Warfare and Covert Operations.

 _And wow, just wow_. Colby though on what he did next. That in 2002, when he was still in the Army, he led a CT Operation, and they penetrated security at a Navel Base and stole a Submarine. And he only had 7 men on his team. _Just wow_.

Colby and David went to speck to Nash's sister. David started to ask the questions, while Colby walked around looking at the photos that were around the house. There were a few of Nash in his service Uniform.

They asked her when she last saw her brother, which was a couple months ago doing security work. Asked if she knew where he went, saying that they were not that close anymore, to which Colby had to ask why. Her reply was, "Glen's changed."

This led the conversation on to Nash serving in Iraq, to which Colby said that they had already looked at his service record. She then went on to say that her brother had lost men over there, and it had hit him pretty hard, to which Colby replied, "It'll do that", because it did, it hit everyone differently, but it hit most of them hard.

This led her to ask if Colby was there, to which Colby answered, "Afghanistan." And her reply to that was "Then you know." And Colby did. He knew that fact really well, and was a little shocked that she would know that to. Maybe being close to someone who had seen the bad could tell it in others. Maybe.

But in the end, she still didn't know where her brother was, so was not much use there, unfortunately.

When he and David got back to the office, it looked as though Don had a little falling out with Charlie somehow. Don always had this look on his face when he and Charlie fought over something. Colby wasn't sure what it was about, but it could have been something to do with the wedding that their dad, Alan, was organizing in Charlie's backyard. Or it could be over something completely different for all he knew.

Back to the case, Colby had found that Nash had been working as a contractor in Iraq the last year, and the base he was working out of was supposed to be secure, but it wasn't. The place was hit by a suicide bomber, which resulted Nash in losing 2 of his own men.

Apparently this information made Megan's mind start spinning, because she looked straight at a picture of Nash, almost as if she knew from that moment what had set him off. And yeah, losing 2 men on a 'supposedly' secure base was hard to let go.

What Megan thinks in his mind is that the lapses in security he saw out there, he may be seeing here in L.A. and he may be calling attention to the bad security that L.A has by demonstrating it. This Colby couldn't quite get, because how can Nash bring this to Homeland's attention by gassing the subway? Megan thinks that he is trying to take control in a situation now, because he was helpless before.

James Grace from Homeland quickly came through in giving the schedules on the other remaining exercises for us, well for Charlie anyway. He then showed us something he believed we needed to see first. Saying that their department keeps record of all threats against Homeland, and that Nash sent letters and making a lot of noise about how easy it would be to trash Houseman's anti-terror drills.

David and Colby then ran an employment check on Nash's former team, before Mirabo Labs, Holstein, Small and Olerud all worked jobs in construction, home building supply and electronics wholesale. Which Megan didn't understand why Special Forces members would 'happily' work 10-dollars-an hour jobs after what they have done, to which Colby replied, that Special Forces guys are trained to live off the land and make use of what's readily available.

Meaning, that they could turn a convenience store item like a cafe latte can into a chemical bomb. This is where they believed they were able to get a hold of Phosgene gas from the time they were working in the Labs. This also meant that they probably took the other jobs in order to get whatever else they needed at the time.

And all of a sudden, here comes Charlie, running into the office, asking everyone, 'Hey, where's Don?', not even a 'Hi' or 'How are you', which was a very Charlie thing to do at times, asking what he wanted first, and then doing the pleasantries later. _Just something else that makes Charlie unique, I guess._

Anyway, what Charlie says is that he believes he may have an answer for Don and the members of Homeland about Nash's possible movements.

After a few minutes, of Charlie writing down his equations on a clear board, and was now firmly in his 'Professor Mode', he went on to say that Nash doesn't just prefer the 'hard targets' but he goes for the hardest. The greatest security challenges. This Charlie had applied it to the 10 remaining exercises and picked out the most likely target for Nash to hit next, which Charlie believed to be the City Hall.

Then Homeland Security office was broken into, when all of this was happening. This was a little bit of a shock for everyone, and everyone rushing out of the door to go and look, with Charlie looking back and forth between the quickly fleeing Agents, looking very confused in Colby's eyes. _Well, we're all confused right now, Charlie. Not everyone and everything can be predicted_.

Looking around the office, it was quickly shown that Nash never entered the building, but had triggered an alarm instead. So what was Nash's objective when he triggered the alarm? Colby's answer was, 'Well, it brought us all here,' to which Don replied that 'Nash is trained in Cyber Warfare. He hacked into Homeland's system,' and saying that maybe they were the point of triggering the alarm, making Don believed that Nash's purpose was to see what they would do, and that he may be watching them through the security cameras that were in the office, seeing them respond.

"It's counter surveillance." Colby has summarised, everyone now looking up at the camera that was facing them, believing that Nash was on the other side, watching them.

After they got back to the FBI building, they discovered that it was possible that Nash was in fact, building a bomb. So Don and Megan went to speck to Houseman again to stop the exercises, to which he almost easily gave in to them telling him to stop, only that the exercises were postpone until Nash was caught. This went a little to smoothly for Don, who was now a little suspicious from what Colby could tell.

Charlie then had told Don that the targets that Nash were apparently going for now were 'Soft Targets', which did not fit his M.O at all. Meaning they either had the wrong guy, or the wrong targets.

Don was then looking at the security footage of the day before on the break-in on Homeland Security, to see what it was Nash was seeing. And he found something. Nash wasn't watching them, he was watching Houseman, and had even left something on Houseman's laptop to scare him as well. It read 'Over 1900 K.I.A. YOU'RE GONNA BURN'. Then they find out that Houseman has been missing all morning, and no one has seen him.

Colby then told the team that the surveillance they had placed on Nash's sister just showed him going in to his sister's house. They all made a quick retreat to their cars to get over their as quickly as they could. Before they could go in, Nash's sister was making her way back into her house, so Colby and David had to make sure she wasn't in harms' way, and stayed with her while Don, Megan and other FBU Agents stormed the house.

Once they had caught Nash, they soon found out that Nash hadn't even been in the country for the last 4 weeks, but in Mexico in drug rehab. This, making him innocent of everything that had happened. Then Megan got to thinking about who had served Nash up to them on a silver platter, to which Colby replied, "Houseman's number two".

Megan then went on to say that Nash wasn't the only ex-Army guy who had lost men. _You couldn't be more right about that Meg if you tried_ , Colby thought, thinking about the men he had lost from his time in the Army over in Afghanistan. His troops, his men, his buddies, his friends, his brothers in arms.

During this conversation, Don had a phone call, saying that Houseman was just spotted at Homeland Security with James Grace. Once the team had made it over to Homeland, Colby and David stayed on the ground, while Don and Megan went up to the roof, where it was said Houseman and Grace were spotted.

Soon a call came through from Megan that a perimeter was needed around the building, and that they needed Bomb Squad. Megan and Don soon sussed out that it was all a drill, an exercise that Grace had done to make Houseman think again before he did something that may kill may others in the future. The bomb was fake. Grace was quickly arrested.

After the case was over, Colby overheard that both Don and Charlie were attending the wedding that was happening in their backyard. Colby really hoped that Charlie didn't get a date from the wedding, as selfish as that was, Colby couldn't help it.

He was just glad that this case was over. It brought back to many unpleasant memories for Colby, and if his headache was anything to go by, he may have a few nightmares for the next few days.

It was always after the case was over he got the nightmares, never on the case, which Colby was thankful for at times. It was a habit that had stayed with him since being in the Army. He never once had a nightmare out in Afghanistan, but he had them for months when he left there. Almost as if his brain knew he was already living a nightmare, that there was no need for nightmares when he was asleep as well. But Colby never slept deep or long enough in Afghanistan to have nightmares anyway, so that was another thing that worked. He just hoped that the nightmares weren't going to be so bad this time. _Just make it quick, and relatively painless, please. And no Humvee-fire-trap dream please. Leave that for a case where there_ is _an explosion_.

With that less than pleasant thought in mind, Colby packed up his things, and made his way back home to his 3rd story apartment.

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